Darrell Issa: Holder Will Appoint IRS Special Prosecutor

Attorney General Eric Holder will appoint a special prosecutor on the IRS scandal because he wants to leave office at year's end and because there will be pressure from November's midterm elections, Rep. Darrell Issa said on "Fox News Sunday."

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of House Oversight and Reform Committee, renewed his criticism of the tax agency for failing to release information in a timely manner.

"They could have pushed one button, taken everything that came out of their search, and handed it to tax-writing committees in hours, not over a year," Issa said.

He added that it is understandable there would be some delay in providing documents to his own committee because of the need to redact tax information. No such need exists, however, for tax-writing committees, he said.

The agency is under congressional investigation for allegedly targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Former IRS official Lois Lerner is a focus of the probe and has pleaded her Fifth Amendment right not to testify against herself.

Issa last week invited IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to "amend" his testimony before his committee after Lerner's lawyer, William Taylor, said in an interview that Lerner did not print out emails containing official documents. That was contrary to Koskinen's testimony when he discussed the loss of many of Lerner's emails in a hard-drive crash.

Issa said Sunday that it was Koskinen who asked to come back to the committee hearing.

"We presume he'd like to use that opportunity to correct the record," Issa said. "And he should."

Either Lerner's attorney was not telling the truth, or Koskinen was inaccurate in his testimony," Issa said.